Movie Listings for April 17-23

April 16, 2015

Ratings and running times are in parentheses; foreign films have English subtitles. Full reviews of all current releases: nytimes.com/movies.

‘5 to 7’ (R, 1:37) Boy meets woman in this New York romance set at the intersection of nostalgia and wishful thinking. The mismatched stars Anton Yelchin and Bérénice Marlohe don’t make any sense as a couple, but that doesn’t stop the writer and director Victor Levin from throwing them together. (Manohla Dargis)

★ ‘About Elly’ (No rating, 1:59, in Persian) The Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s powerful drama, made before “A Separation,” suggests a contemporary update of Michelangelo Antonioni’s “L’Avventura,” with its story of a young woman who disappears during a festive weekend outing at a coastal resort on the Caspian Sea. The movie is a subtle critique of a society in which the disparity between tradition and modernity is irreconcilable. (Stephen Holden)

‘American Sniper’ (R, 2:14) In this film, based on the memoir by Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL sniper who served four tours of duty in Iraq, Clint Eastwood’s direction is as blunt and effective as ever, and Bradley Cooper’s performance as Kyle is a remarkable feat of transformation. But as a movie about recent history, the film is troublingly blurry, and heavy with unacknowledged political bias. (A.O. Scott)

★ ‘Black Souls’ (No rating, 1:48, in Italian) This ominous, well-acted portrait of an ingrown feudal society of mobsters in extreme southern Italy is the antithesis of a sensationalist splatter movie. There is not an operatic flourish to be seen in a film whose killings are executed with a coldblooded efficiency. This isn’t entertainment; it’s life and death. (Holden)

‘Chappie’ (R, 2:00) Frankenstein’s monster gets a titanium makeover in a science-fiction blood-spurter and would-be heartwarmer from the director Neill Blomkamp (“District 9”) that wavers uncertainly between laughter and tears. Even at his shakiest, he holds your attention with stories about characters banding together to emerge from a hell not of their making. (Dargis)

‘Cinderella’ (PG, 1:45) In Disney’s latest version, directed by Kenneth Branagh, the mice stick to squeaking and look about as real as most computer-generated rodents. Much remains the same, however, including a fairy tale that opens with clear skies but soon plays the poor-little-girl blues before you-know-who comes along. Lily James and Cate Blanchett star. (Dargis)

‘Danny Collins’ (R, 1:46) The bogus title character, played by Al Pacino with a zany nonchalance, is an aging dissolute rock star seeking redemption for his wicked, wicked ways. The shameless piece of boomer bait peddles the highly questionable notion that it’s never too late to get back to where you once belonged. (Holden)

‘Deli Man’ (PG-13, 1:31) Heavy on the schmaltz, in all senses, this documentary examines the state of the Jewish deli through David Gruber, known as Ziggy, a founder of a delicatessen in Houston. Trained in culinary school, he represents the third generation in his family to run such a restaurant, the film says. Mainly, the movie is a showcase for some amazing-looking matzo balls, corned beef and chopped liver and for Ziggy himself, who bemoans the loss of Yiddish culture. (Ben Kenigsberg)

‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!’ (No rating, 2:15, in Hindi) Byomkesh Bakshy, the creation of the writer Saradindu Bandyopadhyay (1899-1970), is a kind of Bengali cousin to Sherlock Holmes. Here he gets the full Bollywood treatment — or perhaps half-Bollywood treatment (no songs, no dances). Set in Calcutta in 1943, “Byomkesh” is rich in atmosphere; this is a film more attuned to movie-made ideas of history and style than to history itself. (Rachel Saltz)

‘Dior and I’ (No rating, 1:29, in French, English and Flemish) An exercise in corporate promotion disguised as a documentary, this pleasant and superficial film follows Raf Simons, Christian Dior’s creative director, as he prepares his first haute couture collection. (Scott)

‘The Divergent Series: Insurgent’ (PG-13, 1:58) Tighter, tougher and every bit as witless as its predecessor, the second chapter in this dystopian cycle arrives with a yawn and ends with a bang. Shailene Woodley returns as a young warrior on a world-changing mission, and while she’s appealing, it’s clear that, even two movies in, she isn’t as much driving this franchise as catching a ride. (Dargis)

★ ‘Ex Machina’ (R, 1:50) Alex Garland’s slyly spooky futuristic shocker about old and new desires turns on the relationships that bind together a robot called Ava; (a terrific Alicia Vikander), the software zillionaire who created her (Oscar Isaac, wonderful); and a visitor (Domhnall Gleeson) who’s seriously out of his depth. (Dargis)

‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ (R, 2:04) Under the direction of Sam Taylor-Johnson, E. L. James’s kinky best seller has been awkwardly transformed into a feature film that is part romantic comedy, part erotic melodrama, and pretty much entirely a mess. It’s still kind of fun though, mostly thanks to Dakota Johnson’s funny and sensitive performance as Anastasia Steele, an innocent college student seduced by a ridiculous billionaire. (Scott)

‘Focus’ (R, 1:44) This tale of two con artists in love is slick and shallow, but since the lovebirds are played by Will Smith and Margot Robbie — and since Gerald McRaney shows up near the end to spew inventive profanity — there isn’t really much to complain about. (Scott)

‘Get Hard’ (R, 1:40) A black guy and a white guy and a lot of jokes about prison rape. (Scott)

★ ‘Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem’ (No rating, 1:55) This story of an Israeli woman seeking a divorce makes for gripping cinema from start to finish. Brought to powerful life by Ronit Elkabetz, Viviane is a fleshed-out character, a political metaphor, a shout to heaven and earth. Ms. Elkabetz directed with her brother, Shlomi Elkabetz. (Dargis)

★ ‘Home’ (PG, 1:34) The voice casting is just right for the leads of this animated tale aimed at younger children. Jim Parsons of “The Big-Bang Theory” is Oh, a misfit visitor from another world whose species has decided to gently take over Earth. Rihanna is Tip, the girl he helps try to reunite with her mother. The positive messages for the younger set are sweetly served, and there are a few good jokes for grown-ups too. (Neil Genzlinger)

‘The Imitation Game’ (PG-13, 1:54) Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, the British mathematician whose research paved the way for modern computing and whose code-breaking work during World War II contributed to the defeat of Germany, in this well-made, by-the-numbers biopic. (Scott)

★ ‘It Follows’ (R, 1:40) This nifty chiller abides by a principle that few horror movies have the courage to embrace: The unknown is the unknown. Clues to the source and motives of this menace are dropped, but they don’t add up. Like the evil in a David Lynch horror film, it is out there in the night, waiting to get you. (Holden)

‘Kill Me Three Times’ (R, 1:30) It’s of course unfair to blame Quentin Tarantino for all the terrible movies he has inspired, but enough already! (Dargis)

‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ (R, 2:09) Well, at least Colin Firth looks as if he were having a good time in this bludgeoning, ultra-violent Bond parody. The director, Matthew Vaughn, has no interest in, or understanding of, violence as a cinematic tool — he gorges on splatter, splashing rooms red until it’s the only color left. (Dargis)

‘Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter’ (No rating, 1:45, in English and Japanese) The real-life story that inspired this movie turned out to be too good to be true, but that doesn’t diminish the film, thanks to a heartbreaking performance by Rinko Kikuchi in the title role. She is a Japanese woman who mistakes “Fargo” for a documentary and goes in search of the case full of money buried in that Coen brothers movie. The source tale has since been shown to be largely an urban legend, but Ms. Kikuchi makes you believe that there’s a fine line between reality and fantasy. (Genzlinger)

‘La Sapienza’ (No rating, 1:40, in French and Italian) Eugene Green’s latest film is a decorous meditation on architecture, marriage and the fate of civilization — at once a picturesque tour of some beautiful Italian churches and an inquiry into the nature of truth, love and beauty. (Scott)

‘Lambert & Stamp’ (R, 1:57) This documentary, directed by James D. Cooper, tells the story of Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, the aspiring filmmakers who became the managers of The Who. (Scott)

★ ‘Lost River’ (R, 1:35) Although set in a made-up city, “Lost River” — the feature directorial debut of Ryan Gosling, who also wrote the screenplay — was shot in moribund Detroit neighborhoods. Dilapidated houses, overgrown lawns and abandoned buildings give the movie a surreal charge. While this demented fantasia owes a sizable debt to David Lynch and to Nicolas Winding Refn, it reveals Mr. Gosling as a filmmaker with a poetic sensibility of his own. (Kenigsberg)

‘McFarland, USA’ (PG, 2:08) Hokey and effective, this uplifting story of tolerance and athletic glory stars Kevin Costner as a disgraced football coach who starts a cross-country program at a mostly Mexican-American high school in a poor agricultural town in California’s Central Valley. (Scott)

‘Rebels of the Neon God’ (No rating, 1:46, in Mandarin) The first film from the great Malaysian-born Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang, made in 1992, is a witty and melancholy portrait of urban disaffection, and a portent of masterpieces to come. (Scott)

‘Run All Night’ (R, 1:54) Yes, it’s Liam Neeson in another action film, but at least this one offers a tight script and strong performances, including a vivid supporting turn by Ed Harris as Mr. Neeson’s adversary. The brawls, chases and shootouts may not be to your taste, but let’s face facts: Mr. Neeson is the best actor the action genre has had in decades. (Webster)

‘The Salt of the Earth’ (No rating, 1:50) Wim Wenders’s documentary portrait of the photographer Sebastião Salgado is an admiring, generous introduction to a body of work that combines moral witness with visual beauty. (Scott)

★ ‘Seymour: An Introduction’ (PG, 1:21) As its title suggests, Ethan Hawke’s intimate, big-hearted documentary doesn’t try to offer the final word on its subject, Seymour Bernstein, the pianist, composer, teacher, philosopher and ultimate New Yorker. Instead, in 81 transporting minutes, it draws you so completely into his world that you feel as if you knew all there is to know. (Dargis)

‘The Sisterhood of Night’ (PG-13, 1:44) A small town is thrown into a panic when rumors fueled by social media begin to spread about a local high school in this intriguing film, which echoes both “The Crucible” and an “Afterschool Special.” (Ken Jaworowski)

‘Still Alice’ (PG-13, 1:39) Julianne Moore, as a linguistics professor with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and Kristen Stewart, as one of her daughters, give sensitive and surprising performances, but this movie, based on Lisa Genova’s novel and directed by Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer, is too thin and cautious to give the story the devastating power it deserves. (Scott)

‘The Longest Ride’ (PG-13, 2:08) This latest film adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel (directed by George Tillman, Jr.) stars Scott Eastwood as a bull rider and Britt Robertson as a Wake Forest art-history major. The obstacles to their love are overcome in the usual Nicholas Sparks way, and their story unfolds alongside another tale of enduring romance. With Alan Alda, Oona Chaplin and Jack Huston, all managing to keep straight faces amid the silliness. (Scott)

‘The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ (PG, 2:03) Beyond its blindingly colorful palette, the scant pleasures to be gleaned from this sequel to the 2012 hit, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” derive from watching its eminent, mostly British cast ham it up while trying to inflate dramatic molehills into mountains. To get away pretending that less is more, strenuous overacting is required. (Holden)

‘3 Hearts’ (PG-13, 1:46, in French) This quintessential Gallic bodice-ripper might be described as a hybrid of “An Affair to Remember” and the German filmmaker Dominik Graf’s recent “Beloved Sisters.” But its internal clock is askew, and the premise of the movie, which is set in the present, feels musty. The screenplay relies so many mechanical contrivances to make the story gripping that you can hear the rusty machinery clanking. (Holden)

★ ‘Timbuktu’ (PG-13, 1:37, in Arabic, Bambara, English, French, Songhay and Tamasheq) Abderrahmane Sissako’s film about life under jihadist rule in northern Mali is unsparing, humane and surprisingly funny, examining the absurdity as well as the cruelty of Islamist extremism. It’s an obviously timely movie, but also, in the manner of political films like “Modern Times” and “The Bicycle Thief,” it feels permanent and essential. (Scott)

★ ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ (No rating, 1:25) Set in modern-day Wellington, New Zealand, Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s weird and witty mockumentary turns the daily lives of four vampire housemates into a dotty look at oldsters struggling to adapt to an unwelcoming modernity. (Jeannette Catsoulis)

★ ‘While We’re Young’ (R, 1:34) Noah Baumbach’s latest film surveys the friendship of a 40-something couple (Naomi Watts and Ben Stiller) and their millennial counterparts (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). As usual with Mr. Baumbach, the comic insights are acute and the characters sharply and affectionately drawn, though the women are often stranded on the margins of the story. It all goes a little soft at the end, slides into easy intergenerational aggression, but until then its sweet, generous and a lot of fun. (Scott)

★ ‘Whiplash’ (R, 1:45) Miles Teller is an ambitious young drummer and J.K. Simmons is his intense — or maybe insane — mentor in Damien Chazelle’s energetic and ingenious psychological thriller about the pursuit of greatness and its cost. (Scott)

‘Wild Tales’ (R, 1:54, in Spanish) As high-spirited as its title suggests, this anthology from the Argentine writer-director Damián Szifron offers up a scabrous, often unsettlingly funny look at human behavior in extremis. The best stories are as narratively stripped down as a Road Runner cartoon; they make worrying over ethics seem somehow self-indulgent. (Dargis)

‘Woman in Gold’ (PG-13, 1:47) The movie rests heavily on the squared shoulders of Helen Mirren whose real-life character, Maria Altmann, is a proud, elderly Austrian Jewish woman struggling for the possession of a priceless Gustav Klimt painting stolen by the Nazis. Her performance salvages a film that without her, would be a laborious slog down a well-trodden path. (Holden)

Film Series

‘Alien’ (Friday and Saturday) Midnight audiences can be a bit unruly, which can be part of the fun, but there are limits. The New York magazine critic Matt Zoller Seitz experienced this a few weeks ago at IFC Center when a particularly rowdy patron disrupted a midnight showing of “Twilight Zone: The Movie” until an usher threw him out — by his wrists. It’s hard to imagine this or any other theater employee begrudging the occasional gasp or yelp at “Alien” (1979), which still holds up as an ironclad shocker. But even if it’s true that in space no one can hear you scream, your voice will be heard from the back of the theater. Be afraid. IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village; 212-924-7771, ifccenter.com. (Eric Grode)

Art of the Real (through April 26) This intriguing glimpse at the feistier entries within the category of documentaries, or what Film Society of Lincoln Center somewhat awkwardly calls “documentary as art,” has plenty to recommend it in its second year, including “Will You Dance With Me?,” made of footage that Derek Jarman filmed over one night in 1984 in an East London gay bar. But the sidebar devoted to Agnès Varda alone vaults this series into must-see status. From “Black Panthers,” her blissfully wide-eyed look at a 1968 rally to free Huey P. Newton, to “The Gleaners and I,” a nonpareil meta-commentary on the joys of scavenging (food, dolls, cinema images), the pioneering Ms. Varda _ who will appear at several screenings the weekend of April 17 — has found the art in the real and vice versa for more than 50 years. Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Lincoln Center, 144 West 65th Street, 212-875-5600, filmlinc.com. (Grode)

D.W. Griffith (through April 27) This year is the centennial of Ingrid Bergman, Arthur Miller, Frank Sinatra and, according to a recent New York magazine article, the feature film. This last, factually debatable distinction refers to the 1915 release of the Ku Klux Klan paean “The Birth of a Nation,” which remains as pioneering and as indefensible as ever. It kicked off this nine-week series of Monday screenings dedicated to D.W. Griffith, whose innovations can be seen in virtually every film to follow in his virtuosic wake. The coming weeks will feature Griffith’s “Way Down East” (on Monday), with its white-knuckle chase across real-life ice floes, and concludes with “Isn’t Life Wonderful” on April 27. Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village, 212-727-8110, filmforum.org. (Grode)

‘Haute Couture on Film’ (through May 26) Stealing the spotlight from the likes of Catherine Deneuve, Lauren Bacall and Audrey Hepburn isn’t easy, but Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior and Givenchy — or at least their clothes — pulled it off. French Institute Alliance Française shifts its attention to the great French designers and their best-known creations for the silver screen. Not every one of these films is known for its fashion-forwardness: “The Rules of the Game” (May 5) would be one of the all-time greats if everyone were dressed in gunny sacks instead of Coco Chanel. But the opening offering, “Funny Face,” is a perfect example of how clothes can make even the women who seemed already in good shape. And if the jingoist in you wants to see the United States represented, the series ends with the documentary “Versailles ’73: American Runway Revolution,” in which five American designers did battle against several of those listed above. Screenings are at 4 and 7:30 p.m., Florence Gould Hall, French Institute Alliance Française, 55 East 59th Street, Manhattan, 800-982-2787, fiaf.org. (Grode)

Mad Men at the Movies (Wednesday and Thursday) The 10-film retrospective curated by the “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner at the Museum of the Moving Image apparently didn’t exhaust Mr. Weiner’s list of silver-screen influences. BAMcinématek chimes in with three additional titles, including one _ the 1967 film of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.) _ with a bit more of the song-and-dance skills that Robert Morse displayed in the recent half-season finale. (Mr. Morse will do a Q. and A. afterward.) There’s also the 1965 noir curiosity “Mirage” (Thursday at 9:45 p.m.), with its suffocating views of midtown Manhattan, and Billy Wilder’s “The Lost Weekend” (Thursday at 7 p.m.), which depicted a New Yorker named Don with a drinking problem back in 1945, when Don Draper was still Dick Whitman. Mr. Weiner will introduce “Mirage” and do a Q. and A. after “Weekend.” BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Avenue, at Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100, bam.org. (Grode)

‘Required Viewing: Mad Men’s Movie Influences’ (through April 26) With the head-scratching exception of Jacques Demy’s melancholy “Model Shop,” Don Draper’s moviegoing preferences on “Mad Men” have tended toward the big and brash: “Planet of the Apes,” “Casino Royale.” Matthew Weiner, the creator of Don Draper and everyone else on that show, has more diverse tastes, as shown by the 10 films of his choosing, each of which played a role in molding the “Mad Men” ethos and aesthetic. Surprisingly, only four were released in the 1960s: “The Apartment,” “Les Bonnes Femmes,” “The Americanization of Emily” (April 25 and 26) and “Dear Heart.” Among the others is the 1959 working-girl melodrama “The Best of Everything” (Saturday and Sunday), which Mr. Weiner has called “part of the group mind-set” for the “Mad Men” pilot. Museum of the Moving Image, 35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens, 718-784-0077, movingimage.us. (Grode)

Strictly Sturges (Friday through Thursday) Growing up on the road with Isadora Duncan, inventing a kiss-proof lipstick, writing an Academy Award-winning screenplay for $10 (an actual pay raise from the agreed-upon $1) and eloping with C.W. Post’s granddaughter, as Preston Sturges did, could easily lead to an overdeveloped sense of the absurd. Sturges’s towering reputation among Hollywood funnymen rests largely on his incredible winning streak from 1939-43, in which he made seven of the 19 films in this retrospective, including the masterpieces “Sullivan’s Travels” and “The Lady Eve.” One advantage to seeing so much Sturges in such a concentrated dose is watching a repertory company of character actors that may never have been matched in any other director’s work. So if you’d like to call this series Frankly Franklin Pangborn or Totally Torben Meyer, go right ahead. Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village, 212-727-8110, filmforum.org. (Grode)

Tsai Ming-liang (Friday through April 26) This 18-film retrospective, New York’s largest to date of the revered Taiwanese director, offers something close to full immersion in Mr. Tsai’s minutely controlled minimalism. It’s also a great chance to see his onscreen alter ego, Lee Kang-sheng, in a director-actor pairing that rivals Von Sternberg and Dietrich, Kurosawa and Mifune and Scorsese and De Niro. Here Mr. Lee plays everything from an adolescent blackmailer (“Boys”) to a Taipei porn star (the mind-blowing “The Wayward Cloud” ) to a love-struck wristwatch salesman (“What Time Is It There?,” April 24). Through it all, Mr. Tsai takes his time, allowing his constant co-star and everyone around him to squirm at the uncomfortable but dramatically justifiable silences. Museum of the Moving Image, 35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens, 718-784-0077, movingimage.us. (Grode)

The Vertigo Effect (through April 30) Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, though supplanting “Citizen Kane” as the greatest film of all time _ as “Vertigo” did in Sight & Sound magazine’s 2012 poll — is pretty flattering, too. Still, plenty of directors have tipped their cap to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 classic the traditional way, as this 30-film retrospective shows. There’s “Vertigo” from a feminist perspective (“Variety,” Tuesday at 7 p.m.), “Vertigo” done for laughs (“High Anxiety,” April 29), “Vertigo” as softcore porn (“Sugar Cookies,” April 28) and, in the form of Chris Marker’s unforgettable “Sans Soleil” (April 26), “Vertigo” as essayistic travelogue. And if you’ve never carved out the time for Douglas Gordon’s self-explanatory art installation “24 Hour Psycho,” Les LeVeque takes Hitchcock in the other direction with “4 Vertigo” (April 25), which compresses the film into a brain-melting nine minutes. BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Avenue, at Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100, bam.org. (Grode)